Babble Babel Baa-ble

Do you see the sheep?

So my friend Shirley asked me to knit her the famous Baa-ble Hat. She's not a knitter, so I have no idea where she stumbled across this pattern, but stumble across it she did, and knowing as she did that I'm a knitter, she put forth her request to me. So of course I said yes! I've wanted to knit this hat ever since it came out, though I figured I'd probably never wear it myself, so I refrained from doing it.

Might be a bit short in the crown area?

Now, while in theory I was totally gung-ho about knitting this, a couple of stumbling blocks came my way: 1)I didn't have the pattern. Easy enough to fix. 2) I haven't really done much in the way of colourwork, save for my sheepy vest, which remains unfinished (shhhh...), and 3) I had never knit a hat before. All this to say, it's not perfect.

Just barely covers my ears, folded over!

So I went in order:

1. Got pattern to work off of.
2. Knit this thing inside out and kept floats pretty loose. I actually had to tighten a couple of them while knitting because it was getting ridiculous. Switching between continental and English probably also contributed to tension issues, but practice will most likely solve that.
3. I cast on too few stitches at first (60), and because my floats were a smidge tight, the hat would only just barely squeeze past my ears after I had finished knitting half the sheep. So I frogged and restarted with more stitches (84), adjusting the pattern as I went along and fudging the top snowdrops.
4. I also used DK & worsted weight yarns instead of the aran called for, so that most likely contributed to some gauge issues. That includes the row gauge, which is the reason I'm assuming the crown feels a bit short. Hopefully it'll still go over her hair...
5. Because I only used 3 colours, I probably should've switched to using the charcoal grey for the sheep's faces & horns. Oh well. Next time.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with it and hope she likes it too, once I get it to her! The greatest fear is actually fit, to be honest...